I want my daughter to learn rest before responsibility

What I'm teaching my daughter instead

It’s late evening. The house is lively with the sound of a crying baby upstairs, being consoled by her father. I take a moment to write, resisting the urge to run upstairs and intervene, giving him the full space to parent. My plans are on pause, productivity metrics nowhere in sight, as I once again seek God for clarity on the next step. I know what not to do, yet I find myself dwelling in the messy middle.

I’ve been thinking a lot about life as a stay-at-home mom, a title that was never part of my plan. Neither motherhood nor staying at home was on my agenda. And yet, I’m enjoying motherhood. It feels natural, like an extension of myself. I don’t feel lost inside of it.

As for staying at home, I am no longer kicking and screaming. It was not my paradigm. I come from a line of working women. Women who showed up, provided, and made things happen. With my mom in childcare, I was always with her, surrounded by women who felt like family. Work was normal.

Now, with a child of my own, I find myself in the in-between, unsure of what the future holds beyond what God desires.

Here in the middle,
I am learning rest.

I am learning to lay down my plow and be present.

I am learning to thank God for the gift of being hands-on in my daughter’s formative years.

I didn’t expect how difficult rest would feel. How choosing presence would push against everything I’ve been taught about productivity and worth. There is a quiet tension between who I’ve always been, driven, and who this season is inviting me to become. Rest feels rebellious when you come from women who survived by carrying what no one else would.

I am learning to pause and ask God what obedience looks like here, in the ordinary days. The answer is not louder striving. It’s quieter trust.

We are changing the script for daughters who come from lineages of difference. Not wrong, just no longer aligned with what God is asking of us now. The generations before us did the best they could with what they had. We are the continuation, and sometimes, the course correction.

The old rule said keep going, keep giving, keep proving.
The new rule asks to stay, receive, and remain present. That even if you stop walking, remain standing.

Both rules coexist.

To know it is okay to be.
To understand, she does not have to have everything figured out to be valuable.

I want her to move forward aware of where she is, not rushing past the present to arrive somewhere else. To know there is more ahead, but not being there yet is both humbling and holy.

When you can see the future, it is tempting to chase it. To fight for it. To earn it. I do not want to look back and grieve the life I did not live or the chances I did not take. I refuse that for her, too.

I want her to see what is possible and go after it.
To pour decisiveness into what brings her heart alive.
To know she is allowed to change her mind.

I will teach her how to commit fully and how to pivot when the environment calls for it.

Rest is not passivity.
Rest is a relationship with Jesus.
It is trusting that He knows the beginning, the middle, and the end, and that the middle never catches Him by surprise.

The middle is an unraveling of all we have done up until this point.
It is the character development of where our trust is not.

What does rest look like for you?

With intention,
Janae Carlee